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Lemon Ricotta Cookies

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I started baking from scratch when I was seventeen. I was working in a traditional Italian restaurant in my hometown – it was family-owned and the perfect depiction of everything you’d expect a crazy Italian family to be. One holiday season, they knew I had an interest in baking and needed someone to bake biscotti to sell in the front shop, so they asked their grandmother (“Nonna”) to teach me how to whip up her famous Italian cookie recipes to share with our customers.

The first recipe she ever taught me was a very traditional almond biscotti and boy are they a process! I’ll be sharing that recipe in the future, but just know that those biscotti were the foundation of my entire love for baking. Not too much longer after, I started baking cakes from scratch, trying new cookie recipes & starting to get more and more adventurous with my ideas. One of the wonderful Italian aunts from the family restaurant gave me this recipe just in time for the holidays and I’ve been baking it ever since!

I love to take these cookies with me when I’m meeting people for the first time: family friends, client meetings, next door neighbors, and so on! A lot of people get a little turned away at the idea of putting cheese in a cookie however it’s what helps keep them ridiculously light and fluffy. You can use the recipe to tweak in a lot of different ways (vanilla, chocolate chip, pumpkin), but lemon is always my favorite to make because the sweet and tart flavor just seems to go hand-in-hand with the light and airy cookie base.

One important thing you always want to remember is that using high-quality whole-milk ricotta cheese is a must. I once made 3 batches that were flat and terrible before I figured out that I had been using part skim ricotta the whole time. It clearly wasn’t enough to hold up these delicate little cookies! I almost always use Galbani when I can find it because I know it has the perfect consistency and quality to deliver the ideal cookie.

Try these cookies out this holiday season – share them with your friends, family, coworkers, and anyone else who looks like they just need a good Christmas cookie! Want to add an extra fun seasonal twist? Add some cranberries to the dough!

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Lemon Ricotta Cookies

Servings 3 dozen

Ingredients

Lemon Cookies

  • 1 cup unsalted butter room temperature
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 1.15 lbs. whole milk ricotta
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 1/2 tsp. lemon juice
  • 2 tbsp. lemon zest
  • 4 cups flour sifted
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • 1 tsp. baking soda
  • 2 cups dried cranberries if desired

Lemon Glaze

  • 3 cups powdered sugar
  • 2 tbsp. lemon juice
  • 2 tsp. lemon zest
  • 2 tbsp. milk

Instructions

To make the cookies:

  1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Line your cookie sheet with parchment paper.

  2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the room temperature butter until smooth and then beat in the sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy. 

  3. Add in the ricotta, eggs, lemon juice and lemon zest and mix until just combined. The mixture may looks slightly curdled, but the flour will fix all of that!

  4. Slowly mix in the sifted flour, salt & baking soda. Once fully combined, fold in the dried cranberries if desired.

  5. Use a spoon to scoop out batter, rolling it along the side of the bowl until it appears smooth and round. Use a second spoon to push the dough onto the cookie sheet.

  6. Bake for 10 minutes until the top is set and the bottom is light brown. Remove from pan and transfer to a cooling rack.

  7. While the cookies are baking – make your glaze! You’ll want to add the glaze before the cookies have finished cooling completely to ensure maximum spread.

To make the glaze:

  1. In a medium sized bowl, whisk together your powered sugar, lemon juice and lemon zest until smooth.

  2. If the glaze is thick, add in the milk 1 tbsp. at a time until it reached a smooth consistency. It should be dripping steadily off of the whisk, but not too quickly!

  3. When your cookies are done baking and on the cooling rack, it’s time to quickly glaze them! Grab your cookies (very gently – they’re delicate!) and dip the tops lightly in the glaze.

  4. Tilt the cookie to ensure the glaze spreads evenly, and then place them back on the cooling rack for the glaze to harden.

  5. Enjoy!

Recipe Notes

Pro tip: Place parchment or wax paper underneath your cooling rack to catch any drippage from the glaze stage!

Pro tip 2: Glazing the cookies when they’re warm will ensure that the glaze spreads over the cookie more evenly for a better final appearance!

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